Ok so it's just a rant!
The three saddest words ever written.
A blind girl. There they are, three short words, not even a fragmented sentence worth of words, barely enough to convey a thought. However in the context of the master work by Carl Sagan, “The Demon Haunted World” these three little words evoke a depth of despair, sorrow, agony, and dogmatic cruelty that would fill chapters and pages and entire libraries. These three words are on a list of people executed as witches in a small German city.
A blind girl. Imagine this blind girl, living in the year 1598 in what is now Germany. What would her life have been like; probably blinded by childhood illness, likely an impoverished one, not knowing where your next bit of food is coming from? But hey, I would imagine that plenty of good people were in that situation in those days, perhaps she was always sickly, but so were a lot of other people, ignorant; most common folk were, so. Maybe she had to beg on what passed for streets, maybe the occasional act of prostitution helped buy a little food to fill her sunken stomach, to power the muscles in her emaciated limbs so she could feel her way back to some dank hovel to curl up on a pile of dirty, flea infested straw.
Or then again, maybe it wasn’t all that bad, perhaps she had two parents that truly loved and accepted her, looked after her, bothers and sisters that protected her from the local bullies and led her out to the fields of wild flowers on warm summer days. Perhaps her blindness enhanced her other senses, as it often will, she could have developed a superb ear for music, maybe she had a beautiful, dulcet singing voice; and she became renowned in the area as the little blind girl with the almost supernatural voice. Was that it; was that what got her put on the list?
Or maybe her father was a fine craftsman, as those Germans often are, a woodcarver lets say, and he would let the blind girl carve also small bits of wood starting at an early age. She may have developed fine sensation in her fingertips, her brain doing its best to compensate for its lack visual input, she may have been able to feel the grains and contours of the wood and with time learned to makes things of beauty from it. Why would God give a blind girl such skills, said the wagging tongues, could it be not of God but of Satan? Is this it; is why she is on the list?
This list that I keep referring to is in chapter seven of Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World” it is a short list of people that were executed for witchcraft in 1598 in what is now Germany. As I said a short list, certainly incomplete, a true listing would include how many names; thousands, tens of thousands from all over Europe. Others listed are nearly as sad as the “blind girl”; names are given to some, others, just a vague description, all executed as witches. Others listed include, “the fattest citizen, the most beautiful, the little daughter of the court bailiff, the old woman who tends the toll gate; just people. In all likelihood, just someone who ticked off a fellow citizen, got in another’s way, or was a convenient scapegoat for why the crops withered and died; “witches”?
But somehow, for me, “a blind girl” resonates much more loudly than the rest; who would fear or hate her so much as to point a finger at her and screech; “witch”? How could a blind child, surely one of the most harmless people one could meet, be caste into a pit of torture and agony because she; “what”; what could have gotten her on the list?
Fairly good records were kept of many witchcraft trials; historians know a lot about them from this. The accused had very little chance of being found innocent; once you were accused you were assumed guilty. All your parts were shaved and sheared in the search for “witch marks”. Long needles were used to probe under you skin, in your mouth, your vagina. Most people have birthmarks so one can guess that there was no shortage of marks. The torture that followed was for your own good, the confession stemming from it could “save your soul”; nothing would save your life. Of course the inquisitor wouldn’t fall for pleas of innocence or guilt; begging for mercy, begging for death, made no difference, it was the torture that cleansed your soul of it’s diabolical taint, that and ratting out your friends, neighbors and family. How many thousands died at the hand of the religious inquisitor simply because a tortured, terrified child could think of nothing else but to implicate it’s fellow citizens while red hot branding irons pressed against it’s feet. Is this how “a blind girl” made it on the list?
These witch trials were a money making proposition, you didn’t think having your soul cleansed was free did you; the victim’s possessions and property were divided amongst the participants. What could “a blind girl” have though? It appears that these trials attracted gawkers by the droves; hoping to glimpse the victim displayed in a lude manner. It’s documented that the executioners of Joan of Arc stoked the flames in such a way as to not hinder the view of her “privy parts” for the pious crowd. Most of those convicted were not burned alive as shown in the movies; providing they confessed in the appropriate manner; they were garroted or hanged. Maybe the blind girl was given this small mercy in the end.
I shouldn’t overly romanticize the blind girl, maybe she was an evil person, she could have truly worshiped the devil; who knows, maybe she was some forerunner of “Marilyn Manson”; perhaps she seduced other woman’s husbands storing their seed (semen) in her body to later transfer it to her own demon lover. Of course logic and a basic knowledge of human physiology says that this is nonsense. Most likely she just pissed someone off, creeped them out somehow, or hers was the first name some other girl who was being “cleansed” thought of.
Whatever the case maybe, the last few days of her life must have been pretty lousy. Voices out of the darkness that has always been your world, telling you what to say, what to think; inflicting searing pain and torment; “just confess my child, confess and implicate and all this will stop”. Did her blindness require that the inquisitor describe each torture he was about to inflict? “Now my dear I’m about to burn your nipple with a red hot branding iron, please reflect on the mercy of Jesus while you smell your own burning flesh”; “You have such lovely hands child, long delicate perfect fingers, I’ll now slowly crush them with this thumb screw, you may confess your sins at any time and do go into all the lurid details”.
I’d have liked to been able to refrain from making a wholesale indictment of religion in general and Catholicism in particular; after all, the atheist dogmas were no better; Stalin, Moa, and Pol Pot all had their “blind girls at some point. The worldwide lament for so-called traditional religious values makes that a little difficult I’m afraid. I see some irony in the way American Protestants and conservative media have embraced the recent Mel Gibson film “Passion of the Christ”. Technically it’s a fine movie, but it’s also a literal interpretation of medieval Catholic dogma, the kind of passion play that the wealthy and powerful of Europe often financed as a religious indulgence (buying your way into heaven), the very issue that compelled Martin Luther to nail his edicts to the door. This was the act of defiance against the church establishment that sparked hundreds of years of warfare and countless inquisitional trials (along with the torture and executions). Of course no to be outdone, the new Protestants burned their share of “witches and blind girls” also. Are modern day Christians aware of this legacy of “traditional religious values”; are the conservative talk show hosts ignorant of these past tyrannies? I’m not sure if the Islamists of the past were any kinder to those who had the gnarled finger of suspicion pointing at them; they aren’t today. It has been noted that many Muslims died in the twin towers because of someone else’s desire for traditional religious values.
In the end, the blind girl gave up all she had to her inquisitors; her life; did she confess her dealings with the devil; detail the sex acts she committed with demons while flying over the moon on broomsticks, how she, with Satan’s help, could cause the cow on the farm down the lane to stop giving milk. She must have, under torture, implicated others, I would, so would you. How many other innocent parties were cleansed by what she said hoping to end her agony, the old man from down the road who once gave her some cool water, the neighbor boy who smelled of sandalwood, her mother, some other blind girl? A blind girl.
kedo1981@yahoo.com
The three saddest words ever written.
A blind girl. There they are, three short words, not even a fragmented sentence worth of words, barely enough to convey a thought. However in the context of the master work by Carl Sagan, “The Demon Haunted World” these three little words evoke a depth of despair, sorrow, agony, and dogmatic cruelty that would fill chapters and pages and entire libraries. These three words are on a list of people executed as witches in a small German city.
A blind girl. Imagine this blind girl, living in the year 1598 in what is now Germany. What would her life have been like; probably blinded by childhood illness, likely an impoverished one, not knowing where your next bit of food is coming from? But hey, I would imagine that plenty of good people were in that situation in those days, perhaps she was always sickly, but so were a lot of other people, ignorant; most common folk were, so. Maybe she had to beg on what passed for streets, maybe the occasional act of prostitution helped buy a little food to fill her sunken stomach, to power the muscles in her emaciated limbs so she could feel her way back to some dank hovel to curl up on a pile of dirty, flea infested straw.
Or then again, maybe it wasn’t all that bad, perhaps she had two parents that truly loved and accepted her, looked after her, bothers and sisters that protected her from the local bullies and led her out to the fields of wild flowers on warm summer days. Perhaps her blindness enhanced her other senses, as it often will, she could have developed a superb ear for music, maybe she had a beautiful, dulcet singing voice; and she became renowned in the area as the little blind girl with the almost supernatural voice. Was that it; was that what got her put on the list?
Or maybe her father was a fine craftsman, as those Germans often are, a woodcarver lets say, and he would let the blind girl carve also small bits of wood starting at an early age. She may have developed fine sensation in her fingertips, her brain doing its best to compensate for its lack visual input, she may have been able to feel the grains and contours of the wood and with time learned to makes things of beauty from it. Why would God give a blind girl such skills, said the wagging tongues, could it be not of God but of Satan? Is this it; is why she is on the list?
This list that I keep referring to is in chapter seven of Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World” it is a short list of people that were executed for witchcraft in 1598 in what is now Germany. As I said a short list, certainly incomplete, a true listing would include how many names; thousands, tens of thousands from all over Europe. Others listed are nearly as sad as the “blind girl”; names are given to some, others, just a vague description, all executed as witches. Others listed include, “the fattest citizen, the most beautiful, the little daughter of the court bailiff, the old woman who tends the toll gate; just people. In all likelihood, just someone who ticked off a fellow citizen, got in another’s way, or was a convenient scapegoat for why the crops withered and died; “witches”?
But somehow, for me, “a blind girl” resonates much more loudly than the rest; who would fear or hate her so much as to point a finger at her and screech; “witch”? How could a blind child, surely one of the most harmless people one could meet, be caste into a pit of torture and agony because she; “what”; what could have gotten her on the list?
Fairly good records were kept of many witchcraft trials; historians know a lot about them from this. The accused had very little chance of being found innocent; once you were accused you were assumed guilty. All your parts were shaved and sheared in the search for “witch marks”. Long needles were used to probe under you skin, in your mouth, your vagina. Most people have birthmarks so one can guess that there was no shortage of marks. The torture that followed was for your own good, the confession stemming from it could “save your soul”; nothing would save your life. Of course the inquisitor wouldn’t fall for pleas of innocence or guilt; begging for mercy, begging for death, made no difference, it was the torture that cleansed your soul of it’s diabolical taint, that and ratting out your friends, neighbors and family. How many thousands died at the hand of the religious inquisitor simply because a tortured, terrified child could think of nothing else but to implicate it’s fellow citizens while red hot branding irons pressed against it’s feet. Is this how “a blind girl” made it on the list?
These witch trials were a money making proposition, you didn’t think having your soul cleansed was free did you; the victim’s possessions and property were divided amongst the participants. What could “a blind girl” have though? It appears that these trials attracted gawkers by the droves; hoping to glimpse the victim displayed in a lude manner. It’s documented that the executioners of Joan of Arc stoked the flames in such a way as to not hinder the view of her “privy parts” for the pious crowd. Most of those convicted were not burned alive as shown in the movies; providing they confessed in the appropriate manner; they were garroted or hanged. Maybe the blind girl was given this small mercy in the end.
I shouldn’t overly romanticize the blind girl, maybe she was an evil person, she could have truly worshiped the devil; who knows, maybe she was some forerunner of “Marilyn Manson”; perhaps she seduced other woman’s husbands storing their seed (semen) in her body to later transfer it to her own demon lover. Of course logic and a basic knowledge of human physiology says that this is nonsense. Most likely she just pissed someone off, creeped them out somehow, or hers was the first name some other girl who was being “cleansed” thought of.
Whatever the case maybe, the last few days of her life must have been pretty lousy. Voices out of the darkness that has always been your world, telling you what to say, what to think; inflicting searing pain and torment; “just confess my child, confess and implicate and all this will stop”. Did her blindness require that the inquisitor describe each torture he was about to inflict? “Now my dear I’m about to burn your nipple with a red hot branding iron, please reflect on the mercy of Jesus while you smell your own burning flesh”; “You have such lovely hands child, long delicate perfect fingers, I’ll now slowly crush them with this thumb screw, you may confess your sins at any time and do go into all the lurid details”.
I’d have liked to been able to refrain from making a wholesale indictment of religion in general and Catholicism in particular; after all, the atheist dogmas were no better; Stalin, Moa, and Pol Pot all had their “blind girls at some point. The worldwide lament for so-called traditional religious values makes that a little difficult I’m afraid. I see some irony in the way American Protestants and conservative media have embraced the recent Mel Gibson film “Passion of the Christ”. Technically it’s a fine movie, but it’s also a literal interpretation of medieval Catholic dogma, the kind of passion play that the wealthy and powerful of Europe often financed as a religious indulgence (buying your way into heaven), the very issue that compelled Martin Luther to nail his edicts to the door. This was the act of defiance against the church establishment that sparked hundreds of years of warfare and countless inquisitional trials (along with the torture and executions). Of course no to be outdone, the new Protestants burned their share of “witches and blind girls” also. Are modern day Christians aware of this legacy of “traditional religious values”; are the conservative talk show hosts ignorant of these past tyrannies? I’m not sure if the Islamists of the past were any kinder to those who had the gnarled finger of suspicion pointing at them; they aren’t today. It has been noted that many Muslims died in the twin towers because of someone else’s desire for traditional religious values.
In the end, the blind girl gave up all she had to her inquisitors; her life; did she confess her dealings with the devil; detail the sex acts she committed with demons while flying over the moon on broomsticks, how she, with Satan’s help, could cause the cow on the farm down the lane to stop giving milk. She must have, under torture, implicated others, I would, so would you. How many other innocent parties were cleansed by what she said hoping to end her agony, the old man from down the road who once gave her some cool water, the neighbor boy who smelled of sandalwood, her mother, some other blind girl? A blind girl.
kedo1981@yahoo.com
